ITAS / PEAC 210: Queer Italy

This guide offers some useful starting places and strategies for your research and final projects. Don't hesitate to contact me for help navigating these resources or finding, evaluating, or citing sources for your research topics. – Karen Storz, Research Librarian   

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Trying some initial searches in SuperSearch can be a great way to begin to explore a topic from many angles across a variety of disciplines and types of sources. Start with a simple search and scan the results, paying attention to aspects of the topic that jump out at you or resonate with you.

Because SuperSearch contains so much content from so many different kinds of sources, the results can sometimes be overwhelming and hard to focus. At the same time, SuperSearch is also not comprehensive and can miss key sources. To search with more focus, precision, and depth, try some of the databases and other resources recommended on this guide.

To focus a search on Italy in SuperSearch, try searching for italy OR italian as a subject term. You can do this by entering your search terms and changing choosing SU Subject Terms from the drop-down menu.

Use the filters in the Refine Your Results column to further focus your search. For example, limit to books and e-books or scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals, use the publication date filter to find articles or books published the last 5 or 10 years, or use the Subject filter to narrow to sources that have a major focus on that subject.

These tips work in SuperSearch, the catalog, and most databases.

Use quotation marks " " to search words as a phrase. This will narrow your results.

"birth control"

Use AND to combine multiple concepts in your search. This will narrow your results.

"birth control" AND medieval

Use OR to find different ways your topic could be expressed. This will expand your results. Group these related terms in parentheses, so the database interprets them first. The following search will find results that have any one of the terms in the first set of parentheses along with any one of the terms in the second set.

("birth control" OR contraception) AND (medieval OR "middle ages")

Use an asterisk * to find variant endings. This will expand your results.

("birth control" OR contracept*) AND (medieval OR "middle ages")

Specialized encyclopedias, handbooks, companions, and other reference works can be good starting places for getting an overview of a topic, definitions of key terms, vocabulary for searching, and suggestions for further reading.

The following databases allow you to search across multiple reference works at once.